I bought a $2.00 that had better reviews than the free one. One of the free ones was apparently horrendously out of order, so...
I bought a $2.00 that had better reviews than the free one. One of the free ones was apparently horrendously out of order, so...
Has anyone else on here read Wolf Hall? I am about 3/4 of the way through right now and it is so, so good.
Really loved it. Haven't tackled Bodies yet but looking forward to it.Originally Posted by Bean
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Has anyone read George Saunders? Or his new book? I am hearing lot of good stuff, really good stuff.
Saddened to hear that the wonderful novelist Evan Connell has died at 88. He never reached the popularity of some of his peers, like Updike or Mailer (I don't believe he won any major literary prizes), but Connell was a writer of real perceptiveness and range. He's probably still best known for his brilliant first novel, Mrs. Bridge (which, along with its sequel, was turned into the Merchant Ivory film Mr. and Mrs. Bridge). Another book of his which I think is a major work is The Diary of a Rapist, one of the most unsettling post-war American novels I've read. It reminded me a bit of Dostoevsky, and I couldn't believe it was by the same author who wrote Mrs. Bridge.
Definitely someone worth reading if you haven't done so.
I read Pastoralia which was pretty much to die for. Sea Oak has to be the funniest short story I've ever read in my life. Killed me.
Starting off 2013 with some non-fiction. Read all of Zadie Smith's Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays which I had been reluctant to finish off. I loved her movie reviews best; she's sharp as a tack and not afraid to slaughter popular releases in a way which is both hilarious and bitingly honest.
Also working on The Beautiful Fall by Alicia Drake, a book about Yves St. Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld's simultaneous rise in the Paris fashion world. It's a weird and dizzying read, not so much because of the writing but because of the subject matter. Everyone is a prodigy, everyone is so interested in surface and image, everything is so cut-throat!
I'm reading Crime and Punishment, my first Dostoyevsky. It's all too clear why the book is so lauded.
I'm currently reading Life of Pi and am enjoying it thoroughly. It's far more readable and charming than something so jam-packed with theological discussions has any right to be.
The prestigious National Book Critics Circle Awards have announced their finalists for 2012:
http://bookcritics.org/blog/archive/...shing-year-201AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Reyna Grande. The Distance Between Us. Atria Books
Maureen N. McLane. My Poets. Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Anthony Shadid. House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Leanne Shapton. Swimming Studies. Blue Rider Press
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. In the House of the Interpreter. Pantheon
BIOGRAPHY
Robert A. Caro. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Alfred A. Knopf
Lisa Cohen. All We Know: Three Lives. Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Michael Gorra. Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece. A Liveright Book: W. W. Norton
Lisa Jarnot. Robert Duncan, The Ambassador from Venus: A Biography. University of California Press
Tom Reiss. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo. Crown Publishers
CRITICISM
Paul Elie. Reinventing Bach. Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Daniel Mendelsohn. Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture. New York Review Books
Mary Ruefle. Madness, Rack, and Honey. Wave Books
Marina Warner. Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights. Belknap Press: Harvard University Press
Kevin Young. The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness. Graywolf Press
FICTION
Laurent Binet. HHhH. tr. by Sam Taylor. Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Ben Fountain. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. Ecco
Adam Johnson. The Orphan Master’s Son. Random House
Lydia Millet, Magnificence. W. W. Norton
Zadie Smith. NW. The Penguin Press
NONFICTION
Katherine Boo. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. Random House
Steve Coll. Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power. The Penguin Press
Jim Holt. Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story. A Liveright Book: W. W. Norton
David Quammen. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. W.W. Norton
Andrew Solomon. Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity. Scribner
POETRY
David Ferry. Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations. University of Chicago Press
Lucia Perillo. On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths. Copper Canyon Press
Allan Peterson. Fragile Acts. McSweeney’s Books
D. A. Powell. Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys. Graywolf Press
A. E. Stallings. Olives. Triquarterly: Northwestern University Press
Nona A. Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing: William Deresiewicz
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
Despite the NW love, which I continue to not understand (and Smith has to be considered the favorite, with that field), I'm glad that Lydia Millet and Adam Johnson, who wrote a couple of very accomplished books, were recognized in favor of Kevin Powers, Dave Eggers, Junot Diaz, etc. I haven't read the Ben Fountain, but a NBCC and a National Book Award nomination is pretty nifty for a first novel. Surprised not to see Hilary Mantel. Wolf Hall won this a few years back.
Has anybody read Laurent Binet's HHhH? I got about a third of the way through, wasn't that impressed and didn't finish it. But a lot of people really liked it, and it was probably the most acclaimed literary title in translation of the year, so I should probably revisit it. Beyond the Beautiful Forevers is another acclaimed book that I didn't love (and didn't finish).
I did read the Michael Gorra book on Henry James, and thought it was fabulous. I have the Daniel Mendelsohn book of essays on deck when I have more time.
It is. My edition also had a small section with Yourcenar's thoughts and ideas before, during and after when she was writing this book and they are just as exquisite This book made her reevaluate/rethink not only her life (or herself) but the concept of life and time in general. How she almost subverted and eliminated the physical time and its barriers and ended up being in 2nd Century or bring Hadrian to us. It is brilliant.
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
beautiful and methodical. slowly pulled me into its world. so melancholic but also triumphant. too bad the adaptation was shown on lifetime lol
Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson
i read this because i thought gone girl was a hilarious and canny little novel and this one was touted as its british counterpart. this one is a little less successful but the premise has enough juice to it to keep me going until the end. the explanation type of ending was weird though and unsatisfactory.
“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”
I'm reading it too and am just about to the end. It's a terrific read. Anne Boelyn is such a conniving bitch.
I'm 100 pages into Bring Up the Bodies and I can already feel Mantel pulling the strings to make me feel absolutely guilty for cheering on Cromwell. He's a modern man in a medieval world, and we see everything from his perspective, so you cannot help but root for him. It's especially easy to be on Cromwell's side when his foil is an outdated sadist like Thomas More, but in the 2nd book the targets start changing as Henry gets more arbitrary and it feels like the world turning on its head.
Read Roadside Picnic this weekend, a sci fi novella that was the inspiration for Tarkovsky's film Stalker. It was pretty awesome!
WHAT HAVE I DONE?
YOU SEEM TO MOVE UNEASY
Picked up Building Stories. Wow. It's such a daring, brilliant creation. If you don't have it YOU MUST get it now. I want to give it to all my friends. Awesome stuff.
You should start saving money.
Royal Shakespeare Company To Stage ‘Wolf Hall’ and ‘Bring Up The Bodies’
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ies/?src=twrhp
I want to go to there.
The BBC is doing it too, no?
Yeah, supposedly by the end of the year! Thomas Cromwell for everyone!
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